1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to an icon outputting system and an icon outputting method, and, more particularly, to a system and method of outputting icons in response to a hot-key input, which are capable of displaying an instruction input to a computing system through the hot-key in the form of an icon so that a user may relatively easily understand the input instruction.
2. Description of the Related Art
A hot-key is a kind of shortcut generally used for a computer or a portable digital terminal, and is used to directly display information on the state of a computer system (for example, information on the ON/OFF state of a sounder, the volume of the sounder, the ON/OFF state of a screen, the brightness of the screen, and the connection of a wireless device). Hot-keys used for direct access to wireless Internet may be provided in portable terminals of mobile communication providers, but the types of hot-keys may be different from each other. In a notebook computer system, for example, a combination of an Fn key and an F4 key (Fn+F4) is used as the hot-key. When an instruction is input through the hot-key, an icon corresponding to the function of the hot-key is output to a display device. In the current output method, the icon is output at the basic input/output system (BIOS) level, such as a system BIOS or a video BIOS, or, alternately, system information is output by an application.
A conventional hot-key input method will be described with reference to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a method of outputting an icon in response to a hot-key input according to the related art. When a user 10 inputs an instruction through a hot-key (11), a microcomputer 20 receives key information and creates a scan code (12) based on the key information, and an icon outputting program 30 receives the scan code and requests a system BIOS 40 to transmit information on the current state of the system (13). Then, the system BIOS 40, having received the request, provides the information on the state of the system to the icon outputting program 30 (14). The icon outputting program 30, having received the information on the state of the system, displays an icon corresponding to the hot-key on a display device (15).
However, in the conventional method of outputting an icon, the icon outputting program 30 to output a hot-key icon processes an instruction input through the hot-key of the keyboard and displays an icon. In this case, a unit in charge of analyzing the instruction input through the hot-key of the keyboard and a unit in charge of the icon display function are not separated from each other, which causes a problem in that programming efficiency is lowered. That is, the conventional hot-key icon outputting program 30 cannot reuse the instruction input through the hot-key of the keyboard.
Similarly, in the conventional hot-key input method, in which the unit to analyze the input of instructions through the hot-key and the unit in charge of the icon display function are also not separated from each other, there is a problem in that programs other than the hot-key icon outputting program 30 do not share one hot-key input event. In this case, modifying codes and testing all the codes in order for the conventional icon outputting program 30 to support a function of allowing other programs to share the one hot-key input event is necessary.
Further, the above-mentioned icon outputting program 30 is made up of applications (i.e., Windows programs). This causes a problem in that the icon cannot be output when the icon outputting program 30 is closed and cannot be output in a DOS environment.